Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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FRC Suddenly Doesn’t Like ‘Reckless Rhetoric’

In the aftermath of the vile shooting at the offices of the Family Research Council in Washington, DC, the FRC is working overtime to convince people that those who criticize their rank bigotry are at least partly to blame for the shooting. They held a press conference to make exactly that argument:

In a news conference outside the Family Research Council’s building addressing the incident and the arrest of the alleged shooter, Floyd Corkins II, Perkins said: “Let me be clear that Floyd Corkins was responsible for firing the shots yesterday that wounded one of our colleagues … but Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations ‘hate groups’ because they disagree with them on public policy.”

Perkins, the group’s president, added that he “appreciates” those LGBT organizations that issued a statement of condemnation for the shooting but asked those groups “to join us in calling for an end to the reckless rhetoric that I believe led to yesterday’s incident.”

You don’t like reckless rhetoric, Tony? Really? You run an organization that has spent the last few decades calling gay people child molesters who only want to get married in order to destroy the institution of marriage and probably American civilization too. Your group put out a pamphlet that said:

“One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.”

You have no problem lying about and dehumanizing gay people, portraying them as monsters who want to devour people’s children. Your group continues to cite the research of the completely disgraced Paul Cameron, whose entire career has been devoted to inventing lies to foment hatred of gays. You continue to argue that gay people are so broken that they should get failed “reversion therapy” to turn them straight.

Jesus Christ on a bike, you just hired Jerry Boykin as your executive vice president. Boykin can’t open his mouth without saying something absolutely batshit crazy. The guy thinks that public school textbooks are written to bring about a “Marxist revolution” and wants to ban the building of mosques in America. And “reckless rhetoric” bothers you? Give me a fucking break.

I agree. The Family Research Council definitely deserves to be called a hate group. Oh, and why are they called the Family Research Council. They hardly do any research, in fact I don’t think they do any.

…organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center [have] been reckless in labeling organizations ‘hate groups’ because they disagree with them on public policy

That’s a lie. Disagreements on things like social security eligibility ages, speed limits, and maximum marginal tax rates are diagreements on public policy. What we and the SPLC disagree with you on is OBJECTIVE REALITY, and your view of it makes you a hate group, plain and simple.

…“appreciates” those LGBT organizations that issued a statement of condemnation for the shooting but asked those groups “to join us in calling for an end to the reckless rhetoric that I believe led to yesterday’s incident.”

Perkins: Did they fall for it?

FRC Lackey: Not quite. A spokesperson for LGBT United, an umbrella LGBT organization, held a press conference to respond to your request.

I think I’ve lost count of the number of right-wing nutballs who have committed murder, or at least tried to, over the last several years. The idea that anyone on the Right was out of line for the heated, angry rhetoric they were using on a daily basis was greeted with…heated, angry rhetoric denouncing anyone who would dare suggest that they had any responsibility whatsoever.

Interesting to see what happens when the shoe is on the other foot. Not at all surprising, but fun in a sort of I-told-you-so kind of way.

Well said. Adam Serwer at MoJo wrote about this a few days ago. The reaction of the FRC and Perkins is so predictable it’s (almost) laughable. When are Perkins and the FRC going to take responsibility for every homophobe that uses violence against our LGBT brothers and sisters?

Just like they whine about why can’t companies that support gay rights “stay neutral” but if you say something about Chic-fil-A then you’re the reincarnation of Stalin, Hitler and Pontius Pilate trying to destroy the religious liberty of poor prosecuted christians.

“They are a hate group because the continue to propagate known falsehoods about LGBT people that have been thoroughly debunked.”

Almost there.

Try:

They are a hate group because they continue to propagate known falsehoods about LGBT peopl that have been thoroughly debunked while KNOWING that their rhetoric gins up the hatred of mentally unstable individuals (or just plain assholes, take your pick) who then KILL people that have been thus demonized.

The only positive thing I can say about the FRC’s politicization of this shooting is that it happened quickly enough that I didn’t waste any sympathy on anyone at that organization but the guy who got shot.

What I’d really love to say to the staffers at that organization is “congratulations…you now know what it feels like to walk out of your house as a gay person in this country.” Even in a place like DC, with equal marriage rights and a very progressive population, there have been three trans women murdered and at least three other attacks on gay men (a shooting in a restaurant and two violent, unprovoked street assaults, including one in broad daylight) in the last few months. It will be eight years since my own gay bashing, when a brick was smashed into my face – and the cowardly pukes who hit me ran away when I fought back. I had 4 1/2 hours of reconstructive surgery and have chronic pain in my face as a result.

Perhaps it sounds melodramatic to those who don’t live it, but the threat of being attacked for existing – for just being open about who you are – is a palpable component of every LGBT person’s life. There are very few places where you feel completely safe expressing your “difference,” if not for fear of physical assault, then for fear of harassment and ridicule. This leads to a whole ‘nother layer of anxiety, as even the most open of us spend some time in public figuring out how “out” we can really be.

The reasons for all this? The very attitudes created, fostered and nurtured by groups like the FRC. Even when research is blindingly obviously biased and untrustworthy (e.g., Regnerus’ “study” of “gay parents” from a couple months ago), the folks FRC show absolutely no compunction about using it to further demonize, dehumanize and attack an innocent community of their fellow citizens. And instead of taking the opportunity, as a good Christian would, to use this experience as a means to learn a little bit more about the world and their impact on it, they doubled down on their arrogance to blame the people they’ve been attacking for 2 decades. Incredible.

These people challenge my profound belief in non-violence (except in immediate self defense or defense of another). I’m sorry that guy was hurt. He didn’t deserve that.

Hell, I believe that the evil men who work in that place don’t deserve violence. Or rather, in their case, I agree with Hamlet. We should treat them better than they deserve. And of all the people who would not ‘scape whipping if we all got what we deserve, they would surely not.

Though I am an atheist, I still have little day dreams of Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins approaching Jesus on judgement day, and finding that his expression is cold as he says, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” It is a pleasant dream, but truly only because it won’t really happen. Even they don’t deserve hell.

The nearest thing to a real punishment we can manage is to work to put their ideas into the trash, where they belong. When our culture has moved past them, when they are completely irrelevant, when only a few people as sick as they are send them money and no one asks them to appear on CNN or even FOX, that will be what they really deserve.

And that is what is happening. Too slowly, but it is happening. Thinking about that makes me happy.

FRC’s desperate grab at victimhood isn’t surprising at all. During the civil rights era, the Klansmen who ran around murdering civil-rights protesters insisted THEY were the ones being victimized as well. Hitler insisted his invasion of Poland and mass murder of ethnic “undesirables” was a matter of German self-defense. Rapists insisted their victims were asking fro it, or “led them on.” It’s a nasty self-delusion common in human nature: the more evil you are, the less likely you are to believe it.

I remember a cartoon I saw many years ago — probably in some alt-weekly: a [gay] guy is wearing a T-shirt with a pink triangle on it, and another guy carrying a wooden cross comes up and starts hitting Pink Triangle Guy on the head with it: WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM. PTG finally gets annoyed and says “Will you stop doing that, please?” And Cross Guy takes umbrage and screams “Stop oppressing me!”

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